Matt, after my concussion, I found great relief with neurofeedback. You can read about it in a chapter of The Body Keeps The Score, which is a famous book on trauma. Anyone can benefit from it. World-class athletes used it to win at the championship level. Truly amazing results. Take care and wish you well.
Re: concussion ordeal. You missed an opportunity to echo one of the all-time great headlines from back in the day, when Cardinals ace Dizzy Dean took a liner to the forehead. To wit:
X-RAYS OF TAIBBI'S HEAD REVEAL NOTHING
Presumably, you were too woozy to remember. Leave a note in your pocket to yourself for next time.
Guessing the topics of today's show will be some combination of:
1 John Bolton's aspirations to author a book full of top secret information landing him in prison for the rest of his life.
2 No Kings protest analysis/mockery (asserting it is a paid operation organized by shadowy forces and then never giving specifics as to who was payed for what or how we know that) as well as some mockery of media coverage of the No Kings protest/Nancy Pelosi & other Democrats who have been in office for decades and may as well be kings themselves.
3 Discussion about Mamdani being likely to win the NYC mayoral race followed by a fantastical discussion about the levels of dystopia which will be foisted onto the city by him.
Though I have absolutely no insider information about the contents of the show today, I feel a strong possibility that I at least go two for three on this comment.
I hope you are doing better and recovering well, Matt, despite my frequent complaints about the podcast.
I would do a show about obama being an aging white liberal woman in blackface. I just realized, that's why they loved him so much. He looked like a man, but was one of them in every other way.
I think the dark horse contender and fourth pick for a potential topic of discussion would be the monstrosity that is the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
An affront to artistic design and the human spirit.
I love the photo side-by-side of it and a typical dark plastic trash can. Can’t wait until all us Illinois taxpayers will have to pay for the expense of operating it when it opens in 2026.
Walter, re your comment that Trump “ has lost the white, educated NPR voters” Really? First, he could not lose what he never had. They hated him before he was elected and they have hated him ever since. Second, I’m pretty tired of journalist comments saying “ educated” white people did not vote for Trump. They did. I am one of them except that I stopped listening to NPR Many years ago when they became leftist lunatics.
To all of my followers- both of you, 😊 - Matt and Walter too - you won't be sorry - please find a way to watch The Munsters Season 02 Episode 02, Herman, The Master Spy (YouTube, Tubi...). Serendipity - I was looking for something different to watch on Tubi and saw The Munsters and watched a few episodes - then this one. What a gem! It's about The Russian Hoax!, the 1965 Munster version. Take a break from the current insanity and have a great laugh 😂
First I was really put off by all the excesses described by Thompson but when Walter compares it to Dante it revealed to me the true genius of this book. Now I see each incident or episode as another cantos, populated by tormented sinners each receiving their due. And also Walter's genius!
Matt, you're still a little loopy. Heed the advice to take it easy. I had a housemate (at the time ~30 yo) who got his bell rung in an auto accident and he wasn't really back to normal for a couple months.
He can’t just drop out. It comes back in stages. One day you’ll think you’re fine and then a week later you think “Oh, now I feel back to my old self.”
Hooray! I was listening to a podcast yesterday while making dinner and my kid asked me why I wasn’t listening to “those other guys.” 😂 I told him Matt has a concussion and one person you do not want to engage with when you’re taking a cognitive break is Walter Kirn. Welcome back! 🎉
It's patently obvious to everyone, especially the MAGA base, that what Trump is engaged in is naked retribution that would have made Richard Nixon blush and Hunter S Thompson vomit. It seems that only The Racket and Matt Taibbi play these stories straight — seeing merit in this campaign, which include the embarrassing amateur prosecution of Letitia James, which no self-respecting prosecutor would touch, and the Andrew Weissman nothingburger, which Taibbi breathlessly reported as an 'exclusive.'
These jerks abused their power and they deserve to be held accountable. They weren't just after Trump but they misuse the same national security tools on regular Americans as well. We can't have a rogue FBI and CIA. We can't have our FBI dir, CIA dir and National Security Advisor lying, cheating, obstructing justice and leaking classified information with abandon. FISA abuse was used against Page and the surveillance extends beyond him. If we don't stop this now it will only get worse. Congress needs to step up their oversight game.
I agree with your premise about rogue FBI and CIA, but this is all claptrap, BS, bollocks.
Comey was a godsend for Trump, no one was more responsible for his 2016 win, with his October surprise letter that broke all FBI & DOJ directives and protocols.
There were abuses, yes, but Trump largely brought Russiagate on himself. His cabinets picks could’ve been handpicked by Putin— Paul Manafort, who plead guilty to not registering as a foreign agent, was his campaign manager, for ffs! It is well known Trump was kept afloat from bankruptcy by dirty Russian money,and Putin and Prigozhin had an entire building in St Petersburg dedicated to upending the 2016 election, and if that weren’t enough: ‘Russia are you listening!’ It would’ve been a dereliction of duty not to investigate. Study Adlai Stevenson and Russia if you don’t think so.
Can you imagine if Obama had 1/3 the shady contacts with Cuba that Trump had with Russia?
The Letitia James prosecution smells to high heaven, and Trump’s own prosecutors have resigned rather than proceed, so Trump had to settle for a sycophant with no prosecutorial experience.
Trump has created a vast culture of lies and denialism. There is no raging crime wave in Portland. Yes, Covid was real, and the vaccine helped (spoiler alert, while Fox was spawning vaccine deniers they were requiring vaccine passports of their own employees, and Trump just got his Covid booster last month).
Taibbi has given credence to this denialism, get wise.
You are looking at this politically while I am looking at this matter as these actors' use of national security tools as malfeasance, corruption, violations of the 4th and criminal activity. Take out everything from your comments that has to do with what-aboutism (what about Manafort, what about the Oct surprise, what about Leticia James, what about Halligan's lack of prosecutorial experience, what about crime in Oregon, what about Trump bringing Russiagate upon himself). The only statement that you wrote that's actually relevant is, "there were abuses." Not only were there abuses but their activity was criminal. We had the director of the FBI using false predicates (the Steele Dossier) to spy on American citizens. By using that Dossier it enabled them to leak it to the media to defame and undermine Trump. Comey had to sign those FISA warrant applications and the FISA itself. Ex dir Comey was using a secret process and secret court to weaponize the government. Comey allegedly used a cut-out, Daniel Richman a lawyer who was a friend of his, to leak to the NYT (Michael Scmidt). By doing that he created a line of plausible deniability to hide his criminal activity under the guise of national sec, lawyer client and journalist source privilege which I guarantee you they've done to others and will continue to do if their colleagues get back in power. It is a very powerful tool that Comey was allegedly using. We need accountability.
I am looking at the merits. Your contention is that these are all meritorious prosecutions? Really? Why did no federal prosecutor want to touch the Letitia James prosecution? Why was Trump forced to resort to a rank amateur who is embarrassing herself in court daily? Why did Bondi only move on Comey only after Trump scolded her publicly that she needed to do this? Why did they dig up an old Brazilian legal settlement from years ago to go after Weissman? This all stinks to high heaven. My point about Comey is not whataboutism, it puts the lie to the fact that he was some guided missile who had it in for Trump— if anything he gifted him the election. I agree about the abuses, but if you are condoning Trump’s methods you’ve created an immeasurably worse problem.
In a previous ATW Matt said that many underrate the criminality involved in Comey's case. I believe that's because the wealthy (he's worth about 14 mil according to Google) and powerful are used to getting away with their corrupt ways. It's high time we change that.
To answer your other questions, Comey's case was in the EDVA under the care of Erik Siebert. Erik Siebert's wife's father is the Godfather of Comey's daughter. Siebert was slow-walking the case to let the statute of limitations run out, which was 5 days away. That left Trump with having to light the fire and get things moving. He had no choice. If Halligan was able to get the indictment in literally 2 days and Siebert didn't even try, well that tells you something. Comey allegedly broke many laws. He is a bad person. He was covering up for himself and the other surveillance state abusers and criminals. Believe me, you don't want to live in a country that lets these bureaucrats get away with these out and out unconstitutional acts. I really can't figure out why people want these criminals to get away with this stuff, unless it's of course more TDS.
It seems like you suffer from CDS— Comey Derangement Syndrome. Mind you, I have no love lost for Comey— as mentioned he gifted the election to Trump. But I think you’re going to be sorely disappointed when this comes to trial.
Have you actually read the indictment? I suspect not because your post is rife with generalities. Don’t depend on Matt Taibbi’s mischaracterizations. It is possibly the thinnest indictment in history— it charges Comey with lying to Ted Cruz during his testimony as to whether he knew Andrew McCabe authorized an FBI lawyer to speak to the WSJ ‘on background’ to rebut charges that McCabe put the brakes on the Hillary Clinton investigation. The ensuing article was actually harmful to HRC.
Btw these “background calls” happen all the time in federal agencies — it’s how officials clear up mistakes or add context before reporters publish.
Even if you were to accept the merits of these charges, when Trump’s own AG Jeff Session fired McCabe he relied on the IG’s report which de facto sided with Comey against McCabe by saying it was McCabe who ‘lacked candor’ when he said his actions were taken with the knowledge of Comey.
The actual tweet by Trump commanding Bondi to indict and pronouncing Comey guilty as hell
is more damning — which is why Trump deleted it.
If you cheer on this indictment, I can only imagine you were an avid supporter of Nixon’s ‘Saturday Night Massacre,’ is that right?
Lastly, your claim to want the rich and powerful to come to justice is interesting. Comey is worth $14m, you say? He is poor by Trump administration standards. Just this week Trump began publicly shaking down his own DOJ — staffed by Trump with incompetent partisan lackeys— for $230 million. What is that? 16X Comey’s net worth?
You’re squarely siding with the reactionary billionaire class and their crimes.
What made Hunter S Thompson exciting is here was a southern good old boy who crossed the line— who threw his lot with the counter culture at a time when America was being torn asunder by the Vietnam war and Richard M. Nixon.
Fast forward 60 years and Thompson fan boys Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn are establishment figures par excellence. They flaunt all the trapping of counter culture, but at the end of the day they’ve sided squarely with the extreme reactionary Trump and his movement every time, either championing or looking at the silver lining of all of his extreme policies.
Who knows where Thompson would fall on the political spectrum if his 30-year-old self were alive today. Maybe he would be silent and shrug his shoulders as masked men would try to muscle his ‘attorney’ into an unmarked van.
Maybe he’d give up on being a scathing critic of “that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character,” and maybe he wouldn’t be decrying that Trump “speaks for the Werewolf in us,” which is the way he described Richard Nixon (who was a choir boy compared to Trump’s venality).
Maybe he’d be sitting in his home in NJ anxiously awaiting the new ‘Trumped up׳ charges against political enemies of the president so he could parrot them.
Yay! Matt's back! Hope you're feeling much, much better!
Matt, after my concussion, I found great relief with neurofeedback. You can read about it in a chapter of The Body Keeps The Score, which is a famous book on trauma. Anyone can benefit from it. World-class athletes used it to win at the championship level. Truly amazing results. Take care and wish you well.
Highly recommended!
Yes, and acupuncture!
Re: concussion ordeal. You missed an opportunity to echo one of the all-time great headlines from back in the day, when Cardinals ace Dizzy Dean took a liner to the forehead. To wit:
X-RAYS OF TAIBBI'S HEAD REVEAL NOTHING
Presumably, you were too woozy to remember. Leave a note in your pocket to yourself for next time.
For the record, X-RAYS... is my all-time second favorite headline, behind -- obviously --
HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR
Maybe we'll eventually get to a point where he latter can be aptly repurposed.
Maybe "Honey I forgot to roll" ?
Guessing the topics of today's show will be some combination of:
1 John Bolton's aspirations to author a book full of top secret information landing him in prison for the rest of his life.
2 No Kings protest analysis/mockery (asserting it is a paid operation organized by shadowy forces and then never giving specifics as to who was payed for what or how we know that) as well as some mockery of media coverage of the No Kings protest/Nancy Pelosi & other Democrats who have been in office for decades and may as well be kings themselves.
3 Discussion about Mamdani being likely to win the NYC mayoral race followed by a fantastical discussion about the levels of dystopia which will be foisted onto the city by him.
Though I have absolutely no insider information about the contents of the show today, I feel a strong possibility that I at least go two for three on this comment.
I hope you are doing better and recovering well, Matt, despite my frequent complaints about the podcast.
I would do a show about obama being an aging white liberal woman in blackface. I just realized, that's why they loved him so much. He looked like a man, but was one of them in every other way.
I think the dark horse contender and fourth pick for a potential topic of discussion would be the monstrosity that is the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago.
An affront to artistic design and the human spirit.
I love the photo side-by-side of it and a typical dark plastic trash can. Can’t wait until all us Illinois taxpayers will have to pay for the expense of operating it when it opens in 2026.
Obama should bail on that and gift it to Biden for a tomb.
I diagnosed Biden in 2021: Parkinson's dementia. Then there was the sudden disclosure of prostate cancer.
I project Joe be pushing up daisies by 4th of July.
Wonder if Obama will be a pall bearer.
There was some mocking discussion of Michelle Obama really being a man, so that would be at least . . . symmetrical.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/watch-white-liberal-boomer-paid-protesters-caught-chaperoning-nyc-no-kings-protest
Matt and Walter, welcome back, we've missed this podcast!
Walter, re your comment that Trump “ has lost the white, educated NPR voters” Really? First, he could not lose what he never had. They hated him before he was elected and they have hated him ever since. Second, I’m pretty tired of journalist comments saying “ educated” white people did not vote for Trump. They did. I am one of them except that I stopped listening to NPR Many years ago when they became leftist lunatics.
NPR can't help but show why they deserved to be defunded: https://bsky.app/profile/npr.org/post/3m2x6pi4qkl2f
Me, too.
?
Too many movies while a Dad, perhaps?
They should have asked who the current King is…silly medics.
To all of my followers- both of you, 😊 - Matt and Walter too - you won't be sorry - please find a way to watch The Munsters Season 02 Episode 02, Herman, The Master Spy (YouTube, Tubi...). Serendipity - I was looking for something different to watch on Tubi and saw The Munsters and watched a few episodes - then this one. What a gem! It's about The Russian Hoax!, the 1965 Munster version. Take a break from the current insanity and have a great laugh 😂
Great show. Fred Gwynne was a super talented actor!
Oh wow. A Russia Hoax made out of nothing. Been there, done that.
as your attorney, I recommend that you finish up the summary of Fear and Loathing immediately.
followed by a 24 hour ether binge…
But being sure to have his keys handy and keeping well clear of ladders the whilst.
First I was really put off by all the excesses described by Thompson but when Walter compares it to Dante it revealed to me the true genius of this book. Now I see each incident or episode as another cantos, populated by tormented sinners each receiving their due. And also Walter's genius!
It's the sort of story Joseph Campbell might have written about--the hero enters the forbidden hostile territory and finally overcomes.
That made it make more sense to me, too!
“Always fun to watch someone disintegrate on the internet, that’s what it’s for.”
Great quote from Matt!
Matt, you're still a little loopy. Heed the advice to take it easy. I had a housemate (at the time ~30 yo) who got his bell rung in an auto accident and he wasn't really back to normal for a couple months.
He can’t just drop out. It comes back in stages. One day you’ll think you’re fine and then a week later you think “Oh, now I feel back to my old self.”
I noticed that as well. Rest and time will heal.
Hooray! I was listening to a podcast yesterday while making dinner and my kid asked me why I wasn’t listening to “those other guys.” 😂 I told him Matt has a concussion and one person you do not want to engage with when you’re taking a cognitive break is Walter Kirn. Welcome back! 🎉
Matt - which government agency do you think we should FOIA first to get a copy of the drone footage of your concussion/accident?
This is hilarious
We can neither confirm or deny that Matt Taibbi took a flying leap, fell short of his targeted landing spot and came down on his head.
It's patently obvious to everyone, especially the MAGA base, that what Trump is engaged in is naked retribution that would have made Richard Nixon blush and Hunter S Thompson vomit. It seems that only The Racket and Matt Taibbi play these stories straight — seeing merit in this campaign, which include the embarrassing amateur prosecution of Letitia James, which no self-respecting prosecutor would touch, and the Andrew Weissman nothingburger, which Taibbi breathlessly reported as an 'exclusive.'
These jerks abused their power and they deserve to be held accountable. They weren't just after Trump but they misuse the same national security tools on regular Americans as well. We can't have a rogue FBI and CIA. We can't have our FBI dir, CIA dir and National Security Advisor lying, cheating, obstructing justice and leaking classified information with abandon. FISA abuse was used against Page and the surveillance extends beyond him. If we don't stop this now it will only get worse. Congress needs to step up their oversight game.
I agree with your premise about rogue FBI and CIA, but this is all claptrap, BS, bollocks.
Comey was a godsend for Trump, no one was more responsible for his 2016 win, with his October surprise letter that broke all FBI & DOJ directives and protocols.
There were abuses, yes, but Trump largely brought Russiagate on himself. His cabinets picks could’ve been handpicked by Putin— Paul Manafort, who plead guilty to not registering as a foreign agent, was his campaign manager, for ffs! It is well known Trump was kept afloat from bankruptcy by dirty Russian money,and Putin and Prigozhin had an entire building in St Petersburg dedicated to upending the 2016 election, and if that weren’t enough: ‘Russia are you listening!’ It would’ve been a dereliction of duty not to investigate. Study Adlai Stevenson and Russia if you don’t think so.
Can you imagine if Obama had 1/3 the shady contacts with Cuba that Trump had with Russia?
The Letitia James prosecution smells to high heaven, and Trump’s own prosecutors have resigned rather than proceed, so Trump had to settle for a sycophant with no prosecutorial experience.
Trump has created a vast culture of lies and denialism. There is no raging crime wave in Portland. Yes, Covid was real, and the vaccine helped (spoiler alert, while Fox was spawning vaccine deniers they were requiring vaccine passports of their own employees, and Trump just got his Covid booster last month).
Taibbi has given credence to this denialism, get wise.
You are looking at this politically while I am looking at this matter as these actors' use of national security tools as malfeasance, corruption, violations of the 4th and criminal activity. Take out everything from your comments that has to do with what-aboutism (what about Manafort, what about the Oct surprise, what about Leticia James, what about Halligan's lack of prosecutorial experience, what about crime in Oregon, what about Trump bringing Russiagate upon himself). The only statement that you wrote that's actually relevant is, "there were abuses." Not only were there abuses but their activity was criminal. We had the director of the FBI using false predicates (the Steele Dossier) to spy on American citizens. By using that Dossier it enabled them to leak it to the media to defame and undermine Trump. Comey had to sign those FISA warrant applications and the FISA itself. Ex dir Comey was using a secret process and secret court to weaponize the government. Comey allegedly used a cut-out, Daniel Richman a lawyer who was a friend of his, to leak to the NYT (Michael Scmidt). By doing that he created a line of plausible deniability to hide his criminal activity under the guise of national sec, lawyer client and journalist source privilege which I guarantee you they've done to others and will continue to do if their colleagues get back in power. It is a very powerful tool that Comey was allegedly using. We need accountability.
I am looking at the merits. Your contention is that these are all meritorious prosecutions? Really? Why did no federal prosecutor want to touch the Letitia James prosecution? Why was Trump forced to resort to a rank amateur who is embarrassing herself in court daily? Why did Bondi only move on Comey only after Trump scolded her publicly that she needed to do this? Why did they dig up an old Brazilian legal settlement from years ago to go after Weissman? This all stinks to high heaven. My point about Comey is not whataboutism, it puts the lie to the fact that he was some guided missile who had it in for Trump— if anything he gifted him the election. I agree about the abuses, but if you are condoning Trump’s methods you’ve created an immeasurably worse problem.
In a previous ATW Matt said that many underrate the criminality involved in Comey's case. I believe that's because the wealthy (he's worth about 14 mil according to Google) and powerful are used to getting away with their corrupt ways. It's high time we change that.
To answer your other questions, Comey's case was in the EDVA under the care of Erik Siebert. Erik Siebert's wife's father is the Godfather of Comey's daughter. Siebert was slow-walking the case to let the statute of limitations run out, which was 5 days away. That left Trump with having to light the fire and get things moving. He had no choice. If Halligan was able to get the indictment in literally 2 days and Siebert didn't even try, well that tells you something. Comey allegedly broke many laws. He is a bad person. He was covering up for himself and the other surveillance state abusers and criminals. Believe me, you don't want to live in a country that lets these bureaucrats get away with these out and out unconstitutional acts. I really can't figure out why people want these criminals to get away with this stuff, unless it's of course more TDS.
It seems like you suffer from CDS— Comey Derangement Syndrome. Mind you, I have no love lost for Comey— as mentioned he gifted the election to Trump. But I think you’re going to be sorely disappointed when this comes to trial.
Have you actually read the indictment? I suspect not because your post is rife with generalities. Don’t depend on Matt Taibbi’s mischaracterizations. It is possibly the thinnest indictment in history— it charges Comey with lying to Ted Cruz during his testimony as to whether he knew Andrew McCabe authorized an FBI lawyer to speak to the WSJ ‘on background’ to rebut charges that McCabe put the brakes on the Hillary Clinton investigation. The ensuing article was actually harmful to HRC.
Btw these “background calls” happen all the time in federal agencies — it’s how officials clear up mistakes or add context before reporters publish.
Even if you were to accept the merits of these charges, when Trump’s own AG Jeff Session fired McCabe he relied on the IG’s report which de facto sided with Comey against McCabe by saying it was McCabe who ‘lacked candor’ when he said his actions were taken with the knowledge of Comey.
The actual tweet by Trump commanding Bondi to indict and pronouncing Comey guilty as hell
is more damning — which is why Trump deleted it.
If you cheer on this indictment, I can only imagine you were an avid supporter of Nixon’s ‘Saturday Night Massacre,’ is that right?
Lastly, your claim to want the rich and powerful to come to justice is interesting. Comey is worth $14m, you say? He is poor by Trump administration standards. Just this week Trump began publicly shaking down his own DOJ — staffed by Trump with incompetent partisan lackeys— for $230 million. What is that? 16X Comey’s net worth?
You’re squarely siding with the reactionary billionaire class and their crimes.
Wake up.
What made Hunter S Thompson exciting is here was a southern good old boy who crossed the line— who threw his lot with the counter culture at a time when America was being torn asunder by the Vietnam war and Richard M. Nixon.
Fast forward 60 years and Thompson fan boys Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn are establishment figures par excellence. They flaunt all the trapping of counter culture, but at the end of the day they’ve sided squarely with the extreme reactionary Trump and his movement every time, either championing or looking at the silver lining of all of his extreme policies.
Who knows where Thompson would fall on the political spectrum if his 30-year-old self were alive today. Maybe he would be silent and shrug his shoulders as masked men would try to muscle his ‘attorney’ into an unmarked van.
Maybe he’d give up on being a scathing critic of “that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character,” and maybe he wouldn’t be decrying that Trump “speaks for the Werewolf in us,” which is the way he described Richard Nixon (who was a choir boy compared to Trump’s venality).
Maybe he’d be sitting in his home in NJ anxiously awaiting the new ‘Trumped up׳ charges against political enemies of the president so he could parrot them.
Maybe.
You are much loved. Thank God you are back. All is right in the world!